Ray Bremser
. Courtesy Wikipedia.]] Ray Bremser (February 22, 1934 - November 3, 1998) was an American poet. Life Bremser was born in Jersey City, New Jersey. When he was 17 he went AWOL from the United States Air Force and was briefly imprisoned. The next year he was sent to Bordenstown Reformatory for 6 years for armed robbery. He began writing poetry there and sent copies to Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), who published his poems in "Yugen" and threw a party for him when he got out of jail in 1958. In 1959, Ray met and married Brenda Frazer, her name changing to Bonnie Bremser. In 1969 Troia was published from her prison letters to Ray, detailing her 1960s life on the road as a prostitute in Mexico, to support him and their child Rachel while Ray was on the lam or behind bars. Ronna Johnson's entry in BookForum: "Bonnie met and married the Beat poet Ray Bremser in 1959, having known him for three weeks. Two years later, they were on the lam in Mexico with their baby, Rachel, fugitives from the New Jersey prison authorities, which were pursuing Ray for violating parole. This flight, the manifest subject of Troia, is recounted in the daily two-page letters Bonnie Bremser wrote to Ray from March to November 1963, during his second incarceration. She retrospectively details her life of prostitution on the road in Mexico and the couple’s desperate relinquishment of Rachel there."'[http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/014_05/2088 Troia: Mexican memoirs] by Rhonna Johnson, BookForum, Feb/Mar 2008. Web. Bremser read poetry in The Gaslight Cafe in the Greenwich Village neighborhood. He had 5 books of his poetry published. He died in 1998 of lung cancer. Recognition In popular culture Bob Dylan mentions Bremser in his poem, "11 Outlined Epitaphs": drownin' in the lungs of Edith Piaf an' in the mystery of Marlene Dietrich the dead poems of Eddie Freeman love songs of Allen Ginsberg an' jail songs of Ray Bremser the narrow tunes of Modigliani an' the singin' plains of Harry Jackson ...Bremser, Ray, Bob Dylan Who's Who, July 15, 1996, ExpectingRain.com. Web, Mar. 4, 2015. Bremser was featured in the 1987 film The Beat Generation: An American dream.IMDb . Web, Mar. 26, 2011. Publications Poetry *''Poems of Madness. New York: Paper Book Gallery, 1965. *''Angel: The work of one night in the dark, solitary confinement, New Jersey State Prison, Trenton. New York: Tomkins Square Press, 1967. *''Black is Black Blues''. Buffalo, NY: Intrepid Press, 1971. *''Blowing Mouth: The jazz poems, 1958-1970''. Cherry Valley, NY: Cherry Valley Editions, 1978. *''Born Again''. Santa Barbara, CA: Am Here Press, 1985. *''Poems of Madness / Angel''. Sudbury, MA: Water Row Press, 1986. *''The Conquerors''. Sudbury, MA: Water Row Press, 1998. Non-fiction *''Drive suite : an essay on composition, materials, references, etc.'' San Francisco: Nova Broadcast Press / City Lights, 1968. *''The Village Scene''. Sudbury, MA: Water Row Press, 2000. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Ray Bremser, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Mar. 4, 2015. Audio / video *''Beat Poet Ray Bremser: The jazz poems'' (DVD). New York: Thin Air Video, 200-? See also *The Beat poets *List of U.S. poets References * Ronna Johnson, BookForum, Feb/Mar 2008, Troia: Mexican Memoirs. Notes External links ;Poems *[http://www.blacklistedjournalist.com/column74g.html Excerpts from Poems of Madness] ;Audio / video *Ray Bremser at YouTube ;Books *Ray Bremser at Amazon.com ;About *Ray Bremser (1934-1998) at The Allen Ginsberg Project *"On Ray Bremser" at the Evergreen Review Category:1934 births Category:1998 deaths Category:Beat Generation writers Category:20th-century American poets Category:20th-century poets Category:American poets Category:Beat Generation poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets Category:Poets imprisoned